Oil’s Fall Engineers More Pain for Oil-Field Services

Services Sector Has Underperformed Producers by 30 Percentage Points

Call it involuntary servitude. Europe’s oil-field services sector has underperformed the continent’s largest oil and gas producers over the past year by about 30 percentage points, as the majors have pulled back spending on big projects. A weaker oil price should only further that trend.

Oil’s latest tumble puts pressure on the majors. Brent is down 19% this year, breaking $90 a barrel. That, if sustained, will dent cash flows at companies like BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Total at a time when investors are focused on the sector’s...